Crafts: Felt

October 25, 2018

This is one of my favorite Hanukkah DIY crafts, and it is so much fun to make! I made this last year and am looking forward to enjoying it again this year. And now, if I can just figure out where my sheets of wool felt are, some more felted Hanukkah decorations would be right up my alley right about now!

Looking for a fun Hanukkah craft to make this year? Hanukkah decorations made with wool felt and wool felt only are satisfying to make, work up quickly, and look amazing! This Hanukkah menorah wall hanging makes a great keep sake project that you'll enjoy taking out each year, and would also be wonderful as a special gift to loved ones. Ah yes, and I should mention, this wall hanging was made with no glue whatsoever, and so sewing either, just using the simple technique of felting. Wool felt is available at your local crafts supply store in a range of delicious colors and in 12"x12" sheets, so treat yourself to some creativity this holiday season, and believe me, you'll be really really happy about it!

December 10, 2017

Hanukkah is in just a few days, so now is the time for some DIY Hanukkah crafts that are quick to make and look amazing. This DIY felt coin purse for Hanukkah is a fun introduction to the craft of felt applique, using the felting technique, and since the true custom of gifts on Hanukkah is "gelt" meaning money, these little coin purses are a must! Fill them with chocolate coins, or real coins, or even a gift certificate of some kind, and you've got a winner. Need to make a bunch, no problem, do it assembly line style!

And while you're at it, why not pick up some felt to make some felt mug warmers or coffee cup cozies as well, another craft that is even more simple than this one, really!

December 07, 2017

Wool felt is a truly wonderful material available in a nice range of luscious rich colors, can be purchased in 12"x12" squares, and since it doesn't unravel, you can craft away to your heart's content without the need for glue or sewing, if you so desire. This DIY felt mug cozy is quick and would make a wonderful gift this holiday season, together of course with some lovely mugs! I have added the Hanukkah themed details to my mug cozies using felting, with a multiple needle felting tool and a felting pad, though one can also of course add embroidery, or attach shapes with embroidery, or even add a few lovely beads or buttons.

A coffee cup cozy for paper coffee cups would be made in exactly the same way, and even if you don't know the exact size of the cup you could make your cozy on the small side and use an elastic chord loop instead of a button hole. Got it? Now go make a bunch, maybe even with the felted initials of the recipient, as these work up really quickly!

December 06, 2017

Looking for a fun Hanukkah craft to make this year? Hanukkah decorations made with wool felt and wool felt only are satisfying to make, work up quickly, and look amazing! This Hanukkah menorah wall hanging makes a great keep sake project that you'll enjoy taking out each year, and would also be wonderful as a special gift to loved ones. Ah yes, and I should mention, this wall hanging was made with no glue whatsoever, and so sewing either, just using the simple technique of felting. Wool felt is available at your local crafts supply store in a range of delicious colors and in 12"x12" sheets, so treat yourself to some creativity this holiday season, and believe me, you'll be really really happy about it!

November 23, 2017

Aren't these eight pointed wool felt stars great looking? I have to say I never thought that felt could look so good, that is until today when I started crafting for the very first time with 100% wool felt, which is a very very distant relative of the acrylic felt I've been using for years. More on that another time, for now I just want to share with you that wool felt is wonderful for holiday crafting, and you are going to love the rich colors one can find, ahhhhhh. I'm going to be creating quite a few crafts for Chanukah using wool felt, some which I'll be able to share sometime next week, and some which I'll have to wait and when they are posted elsewhere.

I will give you one little hint, an important hint that is, which is that one of the great things about wool felt is that you can felt with it, namely join one piece of felt to another with a felting too.....truly a crafting pleasure I wouldn't want you to miss......

May 30, 2017

The Jewish holiday of Shavuout starts tonight, and our door is decorated with this sweet little square wreath adorned with felt flowers! (A little disclaimer: door wreaths are decidedly un-Jewish if you delve into their origin, and I generally try not to use the word wreath, but for the sake of folks finding this post, well I just couldn't think of another word that would suffice.) Round floral wreaths are a symbol of military funerals and memorial day, so I went with a fun variation of a square wreath which actually reminds me of a trellis, perfect!

This project came about as I had a bunch of felt chrysanthemum flowers left over from my felt flower napkin ring project, and I have to say, I just love it! Change out the little banner (which reads chag sa-may-ach, with a gutteral ch that is, translated happy holiday) and this project could be perfect for so many occasions, or just as sweet as can be in a baby's room. Ready to whip up one of these square wreaths, using supplies that you likely have on hand (assuming you have a big bag of felt that needs using up, like I did, did, being the operative word, yippee!) let's get started.

May 29, 2017

The Jewish holiday of Shavuous, (in which, among other traditions, we decorate our homes with flowers and greenery to celebrate the receiving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai) is tomorrow night, so with the idea of some really large felt flower napkin rings for our holiday table in mind, yet not a lot of time, I knew I needed a felt flower that would be quick to make and great looking! A quick felt flower is without a doubt one made by rolling a strip of felt, yet that are many variations on the technique with quite different looking results. (I've made felt rose buds, way back when, another flower type to combine with this one, if you like!)

The felt chrysanthemum made from one long strip of fringed loops came to mind, and after a bit of experimenting I was sold. In fact so much so that I used up almost all of a large bag of felt scraps and yardage that had been hanging out for way too many years, yippee! (Note: I do have a large blister on my middle finger from the scissors and all that cutting, such is the price......it nicely compliments the hot glue gun blister on my ring finger!)

I ended up settling on using grey felt for the napkin ring flowers, as that will look the best on my white table with lots of cobalt blue Moroccan dishes, the ones made with pink and yellow and blue ended up being used for a really cute felt flower decoration for the front door, which I will be sharing shortly.

Want to make some of these fun felt chrysanthemums too? If you've got ten minutes or so and felt and hot glue on hand, then lets get started!

August 08, 2014

Back in 2009, when I had just started this little blog, I made a felt rosebud bouquet that was quite a hit, and I've been using it ever since most recently as decor on a side table in our tiny guest room. Because I never glued the foam ball into the original vase, I have now placed the bouquet in shorter bowl, that also looks sweet.

June 03, 2014

This week at Crafting A Future, while some of the girls used their egg carton flowers to decorate mirrors, others ditched the egg carton flowers alltogether and made these sweet rolled felt flowers to decorate their mirrors. This would be a perfect little project for a Bat Mitzvah, or a birthday party, and hey even boys could have fun making something for their mother or sister?

February 07, 2012

You can use a recycled bleach bottle to make a really fun woven basket. And when you add a little felt liner, your recycled bottle basket suddenly becomes really amazingly cute. If I do say so myself. Now, I must admit, I made this basket over two years ago, and for some reason never quite fit it into my schedule to take some photos. So in a way this little woven basket craft is new to me too! But now that I'm revisiting this one, I can't wait to make more, and I may even make some to use for gift baskets for Purim......you know for the special people like teachers and such who deserve (and in my case, will expect) something just a bit special.

Here's another similar photo for those of you who love to study things and needed a slightly lower shot.

You'll Need:

a large opaque bottle, like a bleach or floor cleaner bottle

colorful yarn, the thicker the better, but a variety of thicknesses is good too

good scissors

masking tape

How To:

With a kitchen knife, cut the top off your bottle. Thoroughly wash out the piece you'll be using. Trim the remaining basket portion to the desired height with scissors.

Wrap a piece of masking tape around the top circumference, and mark off even increments of about 2 cm , or just a bit larger, on the tape. Make sure that you'll have an odd number of pieces so that the over and under process will work out at the end of the round! Place another piece of tape around the bottom of the basket as a guide for where to stop cutting.

Cut slits in your basket all the way around, making sure not to cut beyond the bottom guide. (If you take a good look at my photo, you may notice that I cut without marking anything off which is fine if you're just anxious to get going, and aren't a perfectionist, but then you may have to fudge things a bit as I apparently did as I actually cut an even number of pieces, but go figure, this was a million projects ago!)

Tie a piece of yarn to one of the pieces from the inside. Start weaving!

Make a felt sleeve using a sewing machine and two colors of felt. You could also quite simply glue fabric or felt to the edge to conceal it. Or glue a piece of fabric to the bottom and sides, and then cover the rim with a felt or ribbon edge that covers both the inside and outside rim.

And just for the record, the ever creative Gail over at that artist woman, had a very similar idea which she posted here to my great surprise after I made my basket. I love her version with sections of different sizes and she used foam cups I believe, decoupaged with recycled paper, adding another dimension to this project. So now that you have two source for this wonderful project, collect those bleach bottles and recycled containers, and lets get started!